WATER AND LIFE

Life, as we know, occurs in aqueous solution. Without water life is

impossible. The structures of molecules on which life is based, proteins,
nucleic acid, lipids and complex carbohydrates results directly from their
interaction with aqueous environment. The combination of solvent
properties responsible for the intermolecular and intermolecular associations
of these substances is peculiar to water in this respect; no other solvent even
resembles water in this respect.
Water is so familiar; we generally consider it to be rather bland fluid of
simple character. It is however a chemically reactive liquid with such
extraordinary physical properties.

PROPERTIES OF WATER
Water has extraordinary properties.
1. Structure and interactions
2. Water as a solvent
3. Proton mobility

1. STRUCTURE AND INTERACTIONS:

The water molecule (H2O) has a bend geometry with
O-H bond distance = 0.958Ǻ
H-O-H bond distance =104.5˚
Large electro negativity difference between H and O confers a 33% ionic
character on the O-H bond
Dipole moment between O-H =1.85
Water is clearly a highly polar molecule.

• Water Molecule Associate Through Hydrogen Bond

The electrostatic attractions between the dipoles of two, water molecules
tend to orient them such that the O-H bond on one water molecule points
towards a lone-pair electron cloud on the oxygen atom of the other water
molecule. This result in a directional intermolecular association known as
a hydrogen bond.

The hydrogen bond may be represented as D-H·····A where D-H is a

weakly acidic “donor group” such as N-H or O-H, and A is a lone-pair
bearing and thus weakly basic “acceptor atom” such as N or O. only the
hydrogen nucleus can approach the lone-pair of electron cloud of an
acceptor atom closely enough to permit an electrostatic association of
significant magnitude.
Hydrogen bonds are structurally characterized by an H····A distance
that is at least 0.5Ǻ shorter than the calculated van der Waals distance
between these atoms. Thus the energy on the hydrogen bond (~20kj/mol
in H2O) is small compared to covalent bond energies (460kj/mol for an
O-H covalent bond). Most biological molecules have so many hydrogen
bonding groups that hydrogen bonding is a paramount important in
determining their three dimensional structures and their intermolecular
associations.

• The Physical Properties Of Ice and Liquid Water Largely Result

from Intermolecular Hydrogen Bonding.
The structure of ice provides a striking example of the cumulative
strength of many hydrogen bonds, X-ray and neutron diffraction studies
have established that water molecule in ice are arranged in an unusually
open structure. Each water molecule is tetrahedrally surrounded by four
nearest neighbors to whom it is hydrogen bonded. In two of these
hydrogen bonds the central H2O molecule is the “donor” and in other
two it is the “acceptor”.
 As a consequence of its open structure, water is one of the very few
substances that expands on freezing (at 0˚C, liquid water has a density of
1.00 g/ml, whereas ice has a density of 0.92 g/ml).for example if water
contracted on freezing, the density of ice will be greater and the ice will
sink at the bottom of the oceans with the very thin layer of liquid water
on the top. If it is like that the Earth would have a permanent ice age.

Although the melting of ice is indicative of the co operative

collapse of its hydrogen bonded structure, hydrogen bonds between water
molecules persist in the liquid state. The heat of sublimation of ice at 0˚C
is 46.9 kj/mol. Yet only ~6 kj/mol of this quantity can be attributed to the
kinetic energy of gaseous water molecules. The remaining 41kj/mol must
therefore represent the energy required to disrupt the hydrogen bonding
interactions holding an ice crystal together. The heat of fusion of ice (6.0)
kj/mol) is ~15% of the energy required to disrupt the ice structure. Liquid
water is there fore only ~15% less hydrogen bonded than ice at 0˚c.
Indeed the boiling point of water is 264˚C higher than that of methane
(CH4) a substance with nearly the same molecular mass as water but is
incapable of hydrogen bonding. That reflects the extraordinary internal
cohesiveness of liquid water resulting from its intermolecular hydrogen
bonding.

• Liquid Water Has Rapidly Fluctuating Structures.

X-Rays scattering measurements of liquid water reveal a complex
structure. Near 0˚c, water exhibits an average nearest neighbor O···O
distance of 2.82Ǻ which is slightly greater than the corresponding 2.76Ǻ
distance in ice despite of the greater density if liquid. The X-Rays data
further indicate that each water molecule is surrounded by an average
of4.4 nearest neighbors which strongly suggests that the short range
structure of liquid ice is predominantly tetrahedral in character.
The structure of liquid water is not simply described. This is because
each water molecule reorients about once every 10ˉ¹²s.which makes the
determination of water’s instaneous structure an experimentally and
theoretically difficult problem.
For the most part, molecules n liquid water are each hydrogen bonded to
four nearest neighbors as they are in ice. These hydrogen bonds are
distorted however so that the networks of linked molecules are irregular
and varied. Moreover these networks continuously breaking up and
reforming over times. Liquid water therefore consists of a rapidly
fluctuating, space filling network of hydrogen bonded H2O molecules
that, over short distances, resembles that of ice.

4. WATER AS A SOLVENT:
Solubility depends on the ability of a solvent to interact with a solute
more strongly than solute particles interact with each other. Water is said
to be the “Universal solvent”. Although this statement cannot literally be
true, water certainly dissolves more types substances and in greater
amounts than any solvent. In particular, the polar character of water
makes it an excellent solvent for polar and ionic materials, which are
therefore said to be hydrophilic. On the other hand non polar substances
are virtually insoluble in water (oil and water don’t mix) and are
consequently describe as being hydrophobic. Non polar substances
however are soluble in nonpolar solvents such as CCl4 or hexane. This
information is summarized by other maxim, “like dissolves like”.
Salt (NaCl or K2HPO4) dissolve in water because they are held together
by ionic forces. The ions of a salt, as do any electrical charges, interact
according to Columbus’s law:
K q1 q2
F=________
Dr²
Where F is the force between two electrical charges q1 and q2 that are
separated by the distance r, D is the dielectric constant of the medium
between them and k is a proportionality constant (8.99 x
10¯9.m.C¯2).Thus, as the dielectric constant of a medium increases, the
force between its embedded charges decreases; that is, the dielectric
constant of a solvent is a measure of its ability to keep opposite charges
apart. In a vacuum, D is a unity and in air, it is only negligibly larger. The
dielectric constants of several common solvents, together with their
permanent molecular dipole moments. Note that these quantities tend to
increase together, although not in any regular way.
 The dielectric constant of water is among the highest of any pure liquid,
whereas those of nonpolar substances, such as hydrocarbons, are
relatively small. The force between two ions separated by a given
distance in nonpolar liquids such as hexane or benzene is therefore 30 to
40 times greater than that in water. Consequently, in nonpolar
solvents(low D), ions of opposite charge attract each other so strongly
that they coalesce to form a salt, whereas the much weaker forces
between ions in water solution(high D) permit significant quantities of
the ions to remain separated.
An ion immersed in a polar solvent attracts the opposite charged ends of
the solvent dipoles as is diagrammed for water. Solvent, The ion is
thereby surrounded by several concentric shells of oriented solvent
molecules. Such ions are said to be solvated or, if water is the solvent, to
be hydrated. The electric field produced by the solvent dipoles opposes
that of the ion so that, in effect, the ionic charge is spread over the
volume of the solvated complex.

This arrangement greatly attenuates the columbic forces between ions,

which is why polar solvents have such high dielectric constants.
The orienting effect of ionic charges on dipolar molecules is opposed by
thermal motions, which continually tend to randomly reorient all
molecules. The dipoles in a solvated complex are therefore only partially
oriented. The reason why the dielectric constant of water is so much
greater than that of other liquids with comparable dipole moments is that
liquid water’s hydrogen bonded structure permits it to form oriented
structures that resist thermal randomization, thereby more effectively
distributing ionic charges.
The bond dipoles of uncharged polar molecules make them soluble in
aqueous solutions for the same reasons that ionic substances are water
 soluble. The solubilities of polar and ionic substances are enhanced if
they carry functional groups, such as hydroxyl (-OH), keto(C=O),
carboxyl (-CO2H or COOH), or amino (-NH2) groups, that can form
hydrogen bonds with water

Indeed, water-soluble biomolecules such as proteins, nucleic acids, and

carbohydrates bristle with just such groups. Non polar substances, in
contrast, lack both hydrogen bonding donor and acceptor groups.
Amphiphiles Form Micelles and Bilayers
Most biological molecules have both polar (and ionically charged) and
non polar segments and are therefore simultaneously hydrophilic and
hydrophobic. Such molecules, for example, fatty acid ions, are said to be
Amphiphilic or, synonymously, amphipathic (Greek; amphi, both +
pathos, passion). How amphiphile, but it also tends to exclude its
hydrophobic portion. Amphiphiles consequently tend to form water-
dispersed structurally ordered aggregates. Such aggregates may take the
form of micelles, which are globules of up to several thousand
amphiphiles arranged with their hydrophilic groups at the globule surface
so that they can interact with the aqueous solvent while the hydrophobic
groups associate at the center so as to exclude solvents. Alternatively the
amphiphiles may arrange themselves to form bi layered sheets or vesicles
in which the polar group face the aqueous phase.
 The interaction stabilizing a micelle or bi layered are collectively
described as a hydrophobic forces and hydrophobic interactions to
indicate that they result from the tendency of water to exclude
hydrophobic groups. Hydrophobic interactions are relatively weak
compared to hydrogen bonds and lack directionality.

5. PROTON MOBILITY

When an electrical current is passed through an ionic solution, the ions

migrate toward the electrode of positive polarity at a rate proportional to
the electric field and inversely proportional to the frictional drag
experienced by the ion as it move through the solution. The ionic
nobilities of both H3O+ and OH¯ are anomalously large compared to
those of other ions. For hydronium ion this high migration rate results
from the ability of proton to jump rapidly from one water molecule to the
other. The rapidity of proton jump mechanism makes H3O+ ion’s
effective ionic mobility much greater than it otherwise would be. The
anomalously high ionic mobility of OH- ion is likewise accounted for by
the proton jump mechanism.